To think Dentists are the new Lawyers/Estate Agents

[dougieroseagain]

ie social pariahs.

I am trying to find a good dentist. Well, any dentist. We moved regions and I left behind my lovely dentist where my kids went free and I paid (as a private patients) really quite reasonable rates.

I am now trying to register in the new area and the rates are extortionate.

£29 for a kid's check up.
£110 for me. For a check up.

I found another dentist where it was £20 for a kid's check up but they wanted to sell me their plan which costs £5 a month. ie £60 a year. But my kids' teeth are fine - they don't have fillings and the previous dentist was delighted with their teeth. So why should I pay £60 a year when 2 check ups will cost £40 a year?

THIS is why sodding American dentists can afford to spend $35,000 killing a lion.

I have found a reasonably priced dentist about 20 miles from where we live, but there is a registration waiting list of 5 months. I'm not suprised - it's the only dentist in the area which still has NHS places for kids and the check ups are only £18 for an adult.

THIS IS WHY THE NATION'S TEETH ARE FALLING APART. Dentists are pricing normal people out of going to the dentist. Yes, I know they have to buy the equipment and keep the place hygienic. But £110 for a check up is ridiculous.

Wow sounds pricey not sure if my dentist is nhs? I pay £18.50 for a check up and clean so I'm guessing possibly?? We have quite a few nhs ones in bristol

These are private practice prices, tvlover - it's proving near impossible to find a practice that offers NHS for children.

This is an informative thread. Im trying to keep an open mind but all the dentists I know seem to work short weeks and are absolutely loaded

I wonder what motivates people to do dentistry? Surely it's the money? I can't understand why else you would do it. Money is not an unreasonable reason to choose a career as long as you are honest and competent with it.

It's nice to hear about dentists doing work for free. It must be awful for people who can't afford to have work done.

I've spent thousands and thousands on my teeth

This is an informative thread. Im trying to keep an open mind but all the dentists I know seem to work short weeks and are absolutely loaded

I wonder what motivates people to do dentistry? Surely it's the money? I can't understand why else you would do it. Money is not an unreasonable reason to choose a career as long as you are honest and competent with it.

It's nice to hear about dentists doing work for free. It must be awful for people who can't afford to have work done.

I've spent thousands and thousands on my teeth

Ah just checked. Yes mine is nhs. I never knew tbh always had the same on anf just knew I had to start paying at 18 when left college. Lol. Crazy how expensive private ones are!!

Watch Harley Street on iplayer if it's still on there as the issues of private medicine are similar. I have no problem with professionals with rare and hard to get skills charging what they can for their work. I charge £360 an hour and I'm worth it!

However we do find in the UK having an NHS is useful and I have always used and found NHS dentists. Also I don't eat sugar (or only rarely) so that is probably one reason I have reasonable teeth. My mother in fact when in hospital in her 70s was the only woman in that ward with teeth. The nurse went to her bed saying "givvus yer teeth" before bed shaking a pot at her (lovely that my mother still had her sense of humour in telling the story when dying of cancer) and my mother had to explain she had her own (her cousin was a dentist and she always had NHS check ups and also had no sugar during the war nor her whole life as the childhood gave her no taste for it).

I wonder if there are more NHS dentists in urban areas? We really do seem to have a lot and they are very good.

As for motiviation there are about 4 careers parents around here want their children go do - medicine, dentistry law or accountancy and we all know why - very hard to get into, professional, well respected and higher paid.

But surely a professional practitioner should be renumerated accordingly.

I went to uni, did 10 years post grad and earned a lot more than most dentists before I quit.

Why shouldn't a dentist, or a doctor earn a good professional salary.

We have several medics in the family in the US - they earn massive amounts, but pay massive amounts to negligence insurers.

I pay £14 a month for my private dentist. This includes 2 check ups, 2 hygienist appointments and all X-rays per year. The dentist is lovely, the surgery is pleasant and he never rips me off suggesting treatment I don't need. He charges £10 for over 5's and nothing for under 5's. He also referred my son to an orthodontist a bit further away as he knew he wasn't eligible for NHS treatment and this orthodintist was significantly cheaper than more local ones. I consider that quite good value

It seems easy enough to get an NHS dentist in Scotland. I just paid £90 for two white fillings, which is good value.

The thing is, most dentists are self-employed. Indemnity insurance and GDC membership therefore has to be paid by them along with CPD. It's not footed by an employer. DH doesn't get much change out of 10k a year for that. Most CPD is not tax deductible. A lot of "profit" he makes is ploughed back into the practice as investment which mostly benefits the patients - ie it's no skin of his nose if you all sit in ancient uncomfy chairs as long as they reach the right height for the dentists. He doesn't care if there are TVs for you or your DC to watch. If dentists got a standard salary of 35k as is being suggested here, it wouldn't be feasible for him to work so his NHS practice would shut. 35k would hardly service three months of the business loan to the bank

Also, why should any one self-employed have a capped salary? The builder working on our house is self employed. I'm not insisting that he works for me for free this year if his profits are more than 35k

And, further, I know no dentists who work part-time apart from some female ones who do so for family friendly reasons. DH works 6 days a week. 5 days in a mixed practice and 1 day a week in an access centre. We have a 1 and a 2 year old and I'm 24 weeks pregnant. I could massively do without the 6th day working in the access centre doing emergency work. But there is a real issue in our area with getting dentists to do the work so DH thought it would be the decent thing to do to try and do it for a bit along with some other dentists who have signed up. The pay is crap and he would much rather be at home with us. Sunday afternoons and most weekday evenings are spent doing practice paperwork. The regulatory work is insane - and I say that as a lawyer who is used to that kind of work and environment.

What DH is doing is not unusual and I would be very interested to actually meet any of the apicra

[posted too soon] ....apocryphal dentists who work 2 days a week and earn 500k

If you think getting an NHS dentist is bad at the moment, wait 5 years until all the big corporates have bought up most of the practices for sale by paying vastly inflated prices and then either point blank refusing to do NHS work or only doing it with patients paying a much higher top up premium.

really my child had hypoplasia. It can be caused when a child is born prematurely or if the mother or child is ill when the teeth are still forming in the gums. Sometimes it is genetic. It has fuck all to do with not brushing properly (although of course it does mean that taking care of his teeth is very important) or being mc and giving a child too many raisins. My child had an xray which showed one of the teeth that was still in the gum was slightly affected also. Please tell me how any of that was my fault. Going on a course would have made no difference to anything.

You're wasting your breath gobbolin. There is a bitter subset on mn that think all dentists, doctors and lawyers should work in a communist style gulag, with capped salaries and no inkling of what the job and sacrifices involves, nor what indemnity costs. They don't understand the difference between a contract amount and net profit. They don't seem to understand that you get what you pay for, and highly qualified professionals will go elsewhere it they don't like their pay.

Maybe I should announce to my builder and my architect that 3 times average salary is quite enough and I'm not paying a penny more? I'm sure that will go down very well.

I like my private dentist and am happy to pay handsome amounts to a professional with the qualifications and expertise to deserve it.

Sometimesjustonesecond

It is awful if a child needs major dentistry on baby teeth because a child is suffering. Judging the parents or the child is a total waste of time.

Saying that something is someone's fault is irrelevent. Someone in your situation would be better spending time with the dentist discussing management of a medical conditon. My son had problems learning to walk and we spent time with a physio learning how to manage his conditon. Why should spending time with a dental professional be any more shameful? The aim is to help your child, its not to be a detention for naughty adults!

As far as I know a dentist or a dental nurse does not get paid to spend time talking to their patients and relating to them as fellow human beings. If a child and parents have the opportunity to spend time together before a proceedure then they build a rapport. It is unreasonable to expect a dentist to do this unpaid. Just because a few dentists give their time freely does not mean it should be expected.

It would be interesting to dentists' ideas for making NHS money go further. I feel that patients need to help to take more personal responsiblity.

People forget that dentists often have a mortgage and a family to support. They may have years of student loans and business loans to pay off. They deserve to be well paid. It takes excellent school grades and years of difficult study to become a dentist. If I had the brains to get straight As and study for five or six years then I would want more than 35K!

Oh - and the access centre is an NHS one to allow people to access emergency care at the weekend. He could earn more just doing a day of private work but, as I said, is trying to support the NHS and provide NHS care.

A lot of people who end up an emergency centre have got into that position because they have not attend regular check ups. They are the architect of their own misfortune! I feel that people should pay at least a nominal amount towards an emergency out of hours appointment even if they are normally entitled to free dentistry.

I turned around my son's dental health with help. I am sure that plenty of other people could do the same.

When you go for a check up, part of the appt time scheduled is to discuss what you might need to do differently or treatment plans. That time is factored into the cost of the appt. I have had check ups where a 15 min appt was scheduled and the dentist has spent a minute looking at my teeth before I left. Other times an appt might run over. Swings and roundabouts in terms of cost to the dental surgery

As for my ds, of course I spent time with specialists, so he could get the best treatment possible. They were not working for free and I have yet to come across a dentist who does tbh. But really, your posts seem to indicate that all things would be better if parents whose dc have problem teeth went on a course to address their ignorance and show no recognition that sometimes things happen which are genuinely not caused by lack of knowledge or care on behalf of the parents. It's hard enough when your children have bad teeth - it's awful seeing them feel discomfort. Most people have no idea that it is possible for enamel to just not form properly and look at you like you send your kids to bed with a bottle of cola every night! Being told to go on a course I didn't need would have pissed me off. Huge waste of time and money to lecture me about something that I was already treating!

Builders/architects are lifestyle choices. Your life will not be significantly impaired if you don't get that extension, just a bit more cramped.

So, to use your own logic, teeth are a lifestyle choice too.

It's silly to equate the two.

Jolly well done for living in an area where there are NHS dentists. Jolly well done for living in the same area and registering when NHS dentists were still available.

But tell me why one dentist charges £50 for a check up and another 6 miles away charges £110? And then tell me why the only available dentist is the expensive one?

I had a lovely dentist in Yorkshire. It was a bespoke practice with state of the art facilities and a TV on the ceiling and everything (just to emphasise that his practice was up to date and smart, not someone's spare room which is what I've found down here). He was very reasonable. I miss him.

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3180682/QUENTIN-LETTS-fear-dentists-natural-born-killers.html

The good old Daily Mail never lets me down. Snorts

I think there needs to be much more done to improve accessibility to NHS dentists and that dentistry should be considered a vital part of the NHS as much as say seeing a GP.

The link between dental health and the health of the rest of the body is proven. Poor dental health leads to an array of other health problems, including heart disease. Spending more money on improving the nation's teeth will benefit the NHS ultimately.

I have an NHS dentist after years of paying astronomical rates to a private dentist who yes, was very good, but not that good it warranted the prices I was paying IMO.

So teeth are a lifestyle choice - I'm assuming you mean important? But the people dealing with your teeth should earn 35k a year maximum. . So, as I said further up the thread, only those willing to work for free or actually pay for the privilege should qualify as dentists.....

I had a perfectly good tooth ruined by an NHS dentist, then another also tried to do totally unnecessary work and have been private ever since. I pay £14 a month and that covers everything I may need except the full cost if I have any bridges, caps or implants made and then I pay the lab fee. My other half pays £21 a month for the same cover but he is deemed higher risk so pays more because he already has a cap. Although the surgery is totally private they see our son on the NHS which wad a big selling point for us. Our old dentist also did check ups for him for free as we paid but they did not do this through the NHS.

Just because something is a necessity doesn't mean we get to pick how much we pay for it. Dental care is essential, it takes a lot of training to become a good dentist, why the hell should I expect them to be paid peanuts for it? Pay peanuts, get monkeys. If a dentist has the skills and business sense to make good money, it sounds utterly churlish and jealous if we begrudge them their living. It's a free market, they can charge what they like. They are not obliged to work for the NHS, nor obliged to work close to where you live.

I don't have an NHS dentist so not sure who you have directed your comments towards.

Anyway, you can continue to call dentists "social pariahs" if you like, I won't apologise for having more respect for them than you do. Whinge all you like, but it won't change how much you have to fork out for the dentist one iota.

NO gobbo - you equate teeth as a lifestyle choice by compartmentalising dentists with builders.

When have I ever said that dentists should only earn £35k?

My argument is that some dentists are happy to work for the NHS and charge £50 for a check up whilst some dentists choose not to work for the NHS and charge £110 for a check up.

As your DH is an NHS dentist, your argument is biased. If your DH was purely private, then I'd be interested in your opinion.

50 pounds for a check up is far too much. They are just checking your teeth. Unless that includes x rays and fillings it's a couple of minutes work.

And if you are going to pay £21 per month it should cover caps and bridges.

No one has said dentists should work for free and I dont think it is wrong to profit from veneers and other things that are just about apparance, but the nhs should provide sufficient dentists for those who want to see one and dentists shouldnt be allowed to charge whatever they like just because they have you over a barrel.

It's akin to saying gas/elec companies can charge whatever they want cos they own the product and if we want it we should suck up the cost. We dont say that though because energy companies would take the piss. Not unlike some dentists.